Overwatch Character Guide: Abilities And Strategy Tips

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With 22 heroes to choose from, there’s a lot of variety to Overwatch. Each hero has their own abilities, strengths, and strategies that really make them shine in combat, but figuring all of that out as you play can be both intimidating and time-consuming. I’ve compiled a positively massive guide to every hero in Overwatch that includes a breakdown of their abilities and a few paragraphs giving you some useful pointers on how to shine.

Updated Nov 15th 2016.

Contents

Offensive Heroes: Those who excel is dishing out damage and harassing the enemy.

As always, Overwatch is a game about embracing that variety and switching heroes often, so don’t get locked into playing just one. If a strategy isn’t working for you, swapping to a new hero is often the best course of action.

It’s also worth noting that, as with any competitive game, the balance and meta is expected to shift over time, so I’ve done my best to give you a good foundation without getting so granular that my advice risks falling out of fashion.

If you’re looking not for how best to play each Overwatch character, but how best to beat them, visit our Overwatch counters guide for tips on how to counter every Overwatch hero.

Is it really? $40 seems to me like a reasonable price for a Multiplayer only shooter considering the usual Blizzard price is $60. I have a hard time imagening the new AAA release being cheaper. That is a very subjective issue though.

Somehow $40 seems like too much for Overwatch. We have no idea when more maps and modes will be released and if we will have to pay for them. I am not interested in getting sucked into another never ending bifurcation of a games community that happens with paid dlc map packs. This is actually half the reason I haven’t bought another Call of Duty after WaW.

For right now though, I am thinking I may wait to see if Overwatch gets bundled with the GTX 1070 before I buy one.

I was on the fence about Overwatch as well till they figured this out. Then I played the beta and I would have paid for it anyway haha

Relevant quote: “Collectively, the Overwatch team and the Blizzard executive team were able to say that for this game, when we patch in new heroes or a new map, you’re going to be able to get it for free,” Kaplan told Eurogamer.

I normally agree with you except this is blizzard. While they don’t typically drop the price of their games, I haven’t once been disappointed with their update and support for games and when they do an expansion they typically add enough to the game for it to feel justified.

I also wasn’t going to get it until open beta and I just got sucked in for whatever reason, the game is pretty fun and addicting.

Is there a video version of this guide? I feel like simple text doesn’t help all that much. Maybe I’m just too used to watching youtube videos these days lol…

What are you guys using for video cards and what kind of performance do you get in Overwatch? I’m getting like 30 fps right now on medium/high settings so I think its time for an upgrade… Maybe the GTX 950 or GTX 960? I’m looking at the two they recommend here: link to daydull.com want to do some more research before I take the plunge.

Definitely feel like the game being choppy for me in big action is ruining making me play worse. Even though it still looks nice as is, I want a smoother framerate…

evolutiongenji: I’m using a ATI Radeon R9 380 Nitro 4G D5, which is like a SAPPHIRE improved version of the regular model, bought at around 200 euros, which makes it cheaper and better than what your link suggest for the corresponding price range. Game runs perfectly smoothly with at least 60 fps on high settings, and I haven’t tried tuning the settings yet to get better graphics without losing performance or uncapping the fps rate, because I’ve been so obsessed with actually playing the game since launch. And I can tell the game is very obsessive if you like a competitive game which reminds you of Unreal Tournament 2004, but with a class oriented system of the likes of Team Fortress 2.

I’m using a ATI Radeon R9 380 Nitro 4G D5, which is like a SAPPHIRE improved version of the regular model, bought at around 200 euros, which makes it cheaper and better than what your link suggest for the corresponding price range. Game runs perfectly smoothly with at least 60 fps on high settings, and I haven’t tried tuning the settings yet to get better graphics without losing performance or uncapping the fps rate, because I’ve been so obsessed with actually playing the game since launch. And I can tell the game is very obsessive if you like a competitive game which reminds you of Unreal Tournament 2004, but with a class oriented system of the likes of Team Fortress 2.